


Weird Kids

by wakethewinds



Series: Zim Realistic AU [1]
Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Enemies to Friends, Gen, Growing Up, M/M, Mental Instability, No Smut, No underage shit, Not Canon Compliant, Professor Membrane - Freeform, Realistic, Realistic AU, Rivals, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Stand Alone, kinda gay, not that gay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:14:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29351805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wakethewinds/pseuds/wakethewinds
Summary: Basically this is an AU where both Zim and Dib are more or less normal kids but their weird delusions and/or maladaptive pretend-playing games are kind of in sync with each other, creating a strange friendship, and how that whole situation develops as they grow out of childhood.Why? Because it's my mental breakdown and I get to choose the coping mechanism.
Relationships: Dib & Zim (Invader Zim), Dib/Zim (Invader Zim)
Series: Zim Realistic AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2172354
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	1. A New Student

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boring introduction chapter. It's going to start being relatively based on canon, but it's going to sort of diverge more and more as things go. This might be a bit of a slow burn if I don't run out of steam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha not me being lazy enough to just rip the dialogue and just sort of recontextualizeing it. Dw it's just the exposition it'll get better.

"Hello friends! I am a normal human worm-baby, you have nothing to fear from me! Just ignore my presence and we'll get along just fine." The new kid introduced himself with the misplaced confidence of a child. He had big eyes and sickly sallow skin. The other kids responded with boredom, perhaps a raised eyebrow in confusion. For the most part, there was no strong response to Zim's eccentricity. 

But Dib looked at him with widened eyes, with a gaze of bafflement and horror, trying to emulate the piercing looks of the mad scientists on the movies he stayed up late into the night watching. 

Their desks were close together, clustered forming a little table with a couple other kids. When they had a chance to speak without being scolded by their dull teacher, Dib leaned in toward the others at his table. "Have any of you noticed the _alien_ in our class?" 

A jolt of fear struck through Zim as Dib spoke, gaze trained directly onto him. The other kids at their table looked between each other and then at Zim.

"Oh, not this again." One sighed. 

"He's crazy." Another said, casting a pitying glance toward Zim.

"What about his horrible green head?" 

Zim looked down and frowned. "...It's a skin condition."

A pause. Dib felt the judgemental eyes of his classmates on him. He still felt he was write, but knew then that he misstepped. At this point much of the class' attention had turned to the unfolding scene. 

"Man, just because he's new and looks weird doesn't mean he's an alien." A girl spoke up. 

"Yeah, what's wrong with you? All you ever talk about is ghosts and aliens and seeing bigfoot in your garage or whatever."

"But it's right there!" Dib said in a clever, halfway pleading tone, "What kind of human calls themselves a 'human worm-baby'? There's actual proof right there that everything that I've been talking about is real, actual proof of aliens!" 

"Proof that you're crazy." Zim said, but with a superior grin. The expression that he supposed an alien would make upon winning this little spat. Dib returned it with a harsh glare. Thus began their rivalry. 

~~

When class ended, Dib waited by the doorway to walk out of school with Zim. 

"I know that you're an alien." He said with a tone as intense as a child could possibly muster. 

Zim grinned. Inwardly brightly, outwardly again with that sense of suave alien cockiness. "No one will ever believe you." 

"I'll get proof. I'll expose you to the world. I have equipment. I'll catch you and dissect you and show everyone your weird alien guts, Zim!"

"I'd like go see you try, foolish Earth-boy."

So, encouraged by Zim's taunting, Dib chased Zim around the schoolyard until Gaz called for him. 

"Dib! Stop playing with your little friend, I want to go home." 

"He's not my friend! He's an alien! 

"Yeah whatever." She grabbed Dib's arm and began to drag hi away, "Dad's home tonight so let's get going." 

As he was pulled along, Dib eyed Zim with bitterness. "I'll get you next time, Zim."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of chapter 1. I have like 5 planned (the feeling of realization that this is how I choose to spend my time crashes like a tidal wave upon scattered shells and stones) so uhh let me know if you want to see where this is headed though it prob won't make a difference.


	2. Pig Brain Attack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zim hatches a stupid little plan. Dib has an Episode(tm).

It didn't take long for the novelty of a new student to wear off on the class, and once it did Zim's classmates quickly judged to be him as a weirdo, just like Dib. They were placed in the same box and called friends, though if asked both would deny it. Still, they spoke with each other almost every day. When they had a chance to play, when the teacher had them pick partners for a lesson, and even sometimes during moments of downtime between classes, Dib and Zim ended up together practically without fail. Even after school, they sometimes each other around as most of the other kids met up with their parents or boarded busses in clusters of their friends.

So when Zim came to school one morning, nobody other than Dib noticed the little black box he'd conspicuously placed on the corner of his desk. With a scuffed velvety exterior, it was the sort of box that once contained a ring.

"What's with the box?" Dib asked, narrowing his eyes as he noticed the smug grin that sat on Zim's face. "Is this some kind of alien device?" He reached for Zim's box.

Zim snatched it away. "It's just a normal human box, obviously. A human box that you cannot touch."

Clearly alien tech. No question. "What are you planning, Zim?" Dib leaned, wrestling with him to try and reach the box.

Zim shook him off. "If you really want to know, then I'll show you." Zim glanced around, as if any of the kids sitting by them would care. He inched closer to Dib. "Look upon it and be amazed!" Flipping open the lid of the box, he revealed a small, slightly translucent resin piggy.

Dib raised an eyebrow. "What? Isn't this just a toy?"

"It may look like one of your silly toys, but this is something more powerful, more evil, than you could ever imagine! This is not a simple piggie. This is so much more. This is the piggie brainwave, condensed into a crystalline form."

"So?"

"So!" He placed the pig back in the ring box and shut it sharply. "When I place it in the brain-replacer, it will spray out pig-thoughts and collect human brains. Before long, all humans will just be stupid, filthy piggies! Piggies with thumbs." 

"Oh my God!" 

"Yes... Yes! Despair!" Zim unleashed his well-practiced nefarious laughter.

"That sounds... Kind of stupid." 

"Yes! Yes! Wait- no!" He held the box in his fist for emphasis, "Just wait, Dib-monkey, wait and see. Wait and see your puny world ruled by pigs. Wait until you can smell the doom."

"Can you smell doom?" He frowned, trying not to express the worry that crept into his mind.

"Yes. Yes you can."

Their conversation ended as their teacher walked into the room, and for the rest of the morning Zim didn't mention the little black box that sat on the corner of his desk. He acted normally. Normally enough that it distracted Dib. Although he played the straight man in their previous conversation only a moment ago, now that he was left with his own thoughts, they began to spiral. He considered how the world would function if everyone had a mind of the pig. He visualized his sister and his father wallowing in mud, planes falling from the sky as the pilots oinked at each other in panic. Cars falling off bridges, skyscrapers collapsing. All culminating in the natural conclusion: thermonuclear warfare. he wrapped his fingers against his desk in growing anxiety. 

When he looked down on his paper, he noticed he'd been absentmindedly doodling piggies in his notebook. He startled, yelping out and drawing strange glances from the rest of the class. He picked up on the faintest smirk from Zim. 

A spark of internal panic. It's happening, just as Zim said it would. Throughout the day, he kept picking up on little things like this. A girl snorted as she laughed, some kid had a ham sandwich for lunch when he usually had turkey, he noticed a boy with a slightly upturned nose. The piggification was beginning at a much faster rate than Dib could have ever expected. 

When school ended, Zim waited for Dib at the doorway. "Are you enjoying your doom, Dib?"

"You- You evil, diabolical..." He growled, "I'll destroy you!" Dib ran away, Zim's laughter echoing in his ears all the while. 

~~

Dib paced back and fourth all around his house. In his room, he tried to come up with ways to save the world. But none of them stuck. So, he catastrophized in the living room. He thought of all the consequences of his potential failures, the end of the world and how he'd try to survive in a post-piggiepocolypse society. All the while, Gaz played her Game Slave, dying over and over to a hoard of piggies on a particularly tricky level, helping to turn up the knob on his bubbling anxiety. 

"Pace somewhere else, Dib." Gaz finally lost her patience for Dib's presence lingering in her periphery. "You're breaking my concentration." 

"Who cares about your stupid game? The fate of the world hangs in the balance!" 

"The fate of _your_ world hangs in the balance if you don't go away."

"I'm serious! Zim is trying to enslave the human race!"

"Because he's an alien?" Gaz mocked, "Leave your dumb pretend games at school."

"You don't get it, Gaz!" Dib snapped, "The world's going to end if I don't do something! _**God dammit**_ " 

"When did you start cursing?" She turned her head to look at Dib with narrowed eyes. She could see strange, bristled panic plainly written across his face, sighing. "Go talk to dad."

She was right. Their dad could help him build something to reverse the effects. He skittered downstairs and began pacing behind his father, who worked at his lab. 

"Dad! You need to help-"

"Not now, son. I'm working." Said the Professor.

"But dad! There's this alien in my class and-" 

"Don't call your classmates 'aliens.'" Membrane sighed, "Where did you get that from?" 

Dib groaned in frustration. "No, dad! You don't understand, he's a real alien! And he's trying to destroy the world and if I don't stop him-"

Professor membrane finally realized the panic in his son's voice enough to turn around. "Dib. Calm down." 

Dib stopped talking. From the tone of the Professor's voice, Dib worried that his own father thought him mad. And in truth, he wasn't entirely incorrect. When Professor Membrane looked down at Dib, he felt a strange horror, seeing himself in his child. Not just in the black hair and thick glasses, not just in his eccentricity and cleverness, but in those wide and wild eyes. He'd passed his curse to his child, and that horrified him. It horrified him more that somewhere that also gave him pride. Dib was his son, his own spit and image. He didn't like to think about the depth of that familial connection. Secretly, he favored Dib, but sometimes that intensified his instinct to recoil.

Membrane knelt down, and to keep the complex emotion from his eyes he wore a steely gaze. "What happened?" 

His father's cold gaze made Dib feel like a burden. "I-I just..." All of the thoughts he'd been dwelling on for hours left him. "I... I'm sorry." He buried his face in his hands, trying to hide the tears. 

"You're fine, Dib." He tried to speak in a comforting tone, placing a hand on Dim's shoulder. "Take a breath. Try to relax. Tell me what's going on?"

"If I don't do something then the world is going to die!" 

"The world won't die." The comforting tone he attempted accidently slipped away. He sounded utterly neutral. "Why would you think it would?"

"I-I, uhh..." He couldn't think of a response. He couldn't explain it, he didn't know how to articulate all the thoughts and feelings that had been swirling in his head all day. On a level, he understood that his frenzy was irrational, but that understanding didn't penetrate deep enough to assuage the spiraling series of _what if_ 's.

"I can't help you if you don't tell me." Membrane meant it with kindness, but his cool tone made it sound like more of a command. 

Dib's cheeks flushed from the tears and humiliation, the humiliation of confessing his irrationality to his genius father. "Zim said he was going to replace people's brains with pigs," He spoke quickly, trying to move past it as fast as he could, "and this girl made a pig noise and Gaz was playing the pig game and I kept seeing the pigs and- and I kept thinking about what would happen and how the world would end and how if that happened no one would know why other than me and I had to do something in case it happened because otherwise everyone would die!" 

"Well, you can't replace someone's brain with a pig, you know?" Membrane ruffled Dib's hair, tilting his head up to look his son in the eye. 

Now, his father's flat tone served as more of a comfort for Dib. "I know."

"It's physically impossible. Even if it was possible, if such a thing happened, scientists will be the ones to fix it. Not you, you're just a kid. Your friends were probably just playing a prank."

Dib nodded and looked down. "Yeah... I shouldn't have freaked out over it."

"You just have to keep your wits about you, son. Don't let people get to you like that." He pulled Dib into a somewhat stiff embrace. "Self-doubt is one of the most important tools we have. That's why we have to pay attention to real science."

After their conversation, Dib left his dad's basement. Once he heard the steps fade, Membrane hunched over the table, burying his head in his hands. He wondered what he should do.

Dib returned to the living room, more deflated than before, but also more balanced. The edges of his eyes were faintly red.

"You good now?" Gaz ether ignored his sniffling or concentrated on her game too much to notice. 

"Yeah."

"What the hell was wrong with you today?

"I think Zim pranked me." 

"Then prank him back."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not very good at coming up with schemes and I didn't think through the pacing as well as I should have. It might read a bit weird because of that. Sorry about that. Criticism welcome. Next few chapters should get a bit better.  
> 


End file.
